


Learning Magic of Images

by PaulaMcG



Series: Sketches for a Portrait [2]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Artist Remus Lupin, Drabble, Drabble Sequence, First War with Voldemort, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Marauders Friendship (Harry Potter), Pining, Portraits, Student Remus Lupin, Studying, Touching, Werewolf Remus Lupin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:28:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24442111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaulaMcG/pseuds/PaulaMcG
Summary: These pieces of autobiography or, as Remus calls them, attempts at self-portraits show that by autumn 1981 Remus has become more confident in his art and in his love. He’s finally got the chance to study Magic of Images, and he’s learning to add movement to his drawings and paintings.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: Sketches for a Portrait [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1758325
Kudos: 5





	Learning Magic of Images

**Author's Note:**

> These are the three additional drabbles I wrote and polished with the help of my Live Journal friends Minnow, Ishonn, Aerama and Expositionary in October 2006, starting a series, when the prompt _portrait_ at lupin100 on Live Journal had inspired me. The fact that Remus is better connected to his emotions perhaps explains the shift to first-person narration.

2

After a couple of years of studying Dark Creatures, subsisting on meager scholarships, he looks sicklier than at Hogwarts. Without chance for employment, he can as well study art. After all, we never know how much time we have left, so he’s dying to learn how to better record the life around him.

His friends are used to his constant sketching, and they force him to accept pads of proper aquarelle paper as gifts. He surprises them with accurate images of what he’s stored in incredible visual memory. 

“Painting compensates for the threat of losing my human mind,” he says. 

3

Finally I’m reaching the higher level: real portraits. This new skill is overwhelming. I can control it only when the connection is intense. My first model can’t be anyone else. 

Every pose of his is safe in my mind, thanks to my visual memory, which the professors have assessed as exceptional… rather uncanny. When he’s gone and he hasn’t bothered to tell me when he’ll be back, I console myself with countless sketches. 

However, the magic of movement requires his presence. And when he agrees to stay near – as man or dog – he overwhelms me, and I forget to paint.

4

Tonight he must be too much tempted to pretend the golden carefree days are back. The teasing smack on my neck turns into a caress.

He’s caught me playing with tints of yellow and red. The illusion of warmth I’ve reached is shattered momentarily when he opens the door to the balcony and steps out. But he settles to smoke in front of the birch, which still glows like a torch in the chill of the fading evening. 

If his face stays long enough in the middle of my landscape, perhaps I’ll manage to touch him, catching his moving image.


End file.
